All Chapters of The Mafia's Thirteenth Bride : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

61 Chapters

Chapter Eleven: Chamomile Tea

IvyI woke up to sunlight and the smell of antiseptic.My head throbbed. My hands burned. My whole body felt like someone had filled it with sand.I blinked at the ceiling. White. High. Familiar.I was back in the room. The one I'd climbed out of."No," I whispered."You're awake."I turned my head. Too fast. The room spun.Dorian sat in a chair by the window. He looked different. Tired. Dark circles under his eyes. His suit was rumpled.Had he been there all night?"What happened?" I asked."You climbed out a window. Ran through the garden. Passed out by the fountain." His voice was flat. Controlled. "You don't remember?"I thought about it. The door handle turning. The tree branch. The grass. The moon.The hands on my shoulders."You carried me back," I said."I carried you back.""Why?"He didn't answer. Just stared at me with those gray eyes. Unreadable. Cold.But something behind them was different. Something I couldn't name."The doctor found sedatives in your system," he said.

Chapter Twelve: The Housekeeper's Mask

DorianI found Mrs. Chen in the laundry room at 7 AM.She was folding sheets, her hands moving with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done the same task ten thousand times. She didn't look up when I entered. Didn't flinch. Didn't acknowledge me at all."Mrs. Chen."She folded another sheet. Placed it on the stack. Then another."We need to talk."She finally looked up. Her face was calm, almost peaceful. Like she had been expecting this conversation for a very long time."Of course, Mr. Vale. Shall I make tea?""No."She nodded slowly and set down the sheet she was holding. She wiped her hands on her apron and turned to face me fully. Her eyes were wet. Not crying yet, but ready to cry. The tears were standing by, waiting to be called."Marcus searched your room last night," I said."I know.""He found the sedative.""He did.""He found the photographs. The journal."Mrs. Chen's lower lip trembled. There it was. The performance."Mr. Vale, I can explain.""Then explain."She

Chapter Thirteen: The First Lesson

IvySofia Reyes arrived at noon.I knew because I heard her before I saw her. Boots on marble. The kind of footsteps that belonged to someone who had never been told to walk quietly.She appeared in my doorway without knocking, without announcing herself, without any of the polite social rituals I had learned to expect from strangers."You must be Ivy," she said.I pressed myself against the headboard. My hands found the blanket and pulled it up to my chin like it could protect me."I'm Sofia. Dorian sent me." She walked into the room without waiting for an invitation. She was tall, sharp, with dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and eyes that missed nothing. "Get dressed. We start in ten minutes.""Start what?"She looked at me like I had asked a stupid question."Self defense. You're the thirteenth wife of a mafia lord. People want you dead. Dorian wants you alive." She shrugged. "I'm the one who makes sure that happens."She left before I could respond.I sat in bed for a ful

Chapter Fourteen: Ivy's Face

DorianMarcus found me in the hallway outside Ivy's room at midnight.I was not doing anything. Just standing there. Listening to the silence. Telling myself I was checking on security when really I was checking on her breathing. She had been asleep for three hours. I knew because I had counted."Boss." Marcus's voice was low. Careful. The way he talked when he was about to say something he knew I did not want to hear.I turned to face him. "What?""We need to talk.""Then talk."He looked at the door behind me. At the closed door behind me. At the door I had been standing in front of for no reason at all. Then he looked back at me."Not here. Your study."I followed him down the hallway. Past the portraits. Past the dark windows. Past the places where shadows gathered and waited. The house was too quiet. It was always too quiet at this hour.Marcus closed the door behind us and leaned against it. He did not sit down. That meant he wanted to leave quickly. That meant he expected me to

Chapter Fifteen: Goodbye, My Dear

IvyI could not sleep.The bed was too soft. The blankets were too warm. The room was too quiet. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Mrs Chen's face. The way she had looked at me through the crack in the kitchen door. The way her eyes had gleamed in the darkness. The way she had smiled when she thought I could not see her.I lay in bed for an hour. Then two hours. Then three.At midnight, I gave up.I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. The floor was cold under my bare feet. The moonlight came through the window, pale and silver, painting shapes on the walls.I opened my door and stepped into the hallway.The mansion was different at night. The shadows were deeper. The silence was heavier. The portraits on the walls seemed to watch me as I walked past them. Twelve women in white dresses. Twelve dead brides. Twelve pairs of eyes that followed me down the hall.I walked slowly, my hand trailing along the wall, my eyes memorizing everything. Every door. Every painting. Ev

Chapter Sixteen: Is It A Coincidence?

DorianI should have been angry.When I found the locked room open, when I saw the light spilling out into the dark hallway, when I walked inside and found Ivy sitting on the floor surrounded by twelve files and twelve lives and twelve deaths, I should have yelled. I should have grabbed her. I should have demanded to know what she thought she was doing.But she looked up at me with those gray green eyes, and she was not afraid. She was not guilty. She was not anything I expected her to be.She was sad."You knew," she said. Her voice was quiet. Not accusatory. Just tired. "You knew someone was killing them."I closed the door behind me and sat down on the floor across from her. The metal cabinets loomed over us. The files spread out between us like a map of everything I had failed to protect."Yes," I said."How long?""Since the third one."She picked up a file. Opened it. The first bride's face stared up at me from the photograph paper clipped to the front. Twenty years old. Blonde.

Chapter Seventeen: The Talk

IvyI stared at Dorian, waiting for him to say something. The file was still open in my hands. The witness statement was right there. The schedule was right there. Mrs Chen had Thursdays off. The brides died on Thursdays. When she switched her day off, the bride died on a different day. It was not complicated. It was not random. It was a pattern.But Dorian was shaking his head."No," he said."What do you mean no?""I mean no. It is a coincidence."I stared at him. "A coincidence? Twelve women died on the same day Mrs Chen had off. That is not a coincidence. That is evidence."He stood up, walked to the other side of the room and ran a hand through his hair. His back was to me. His shoulders were tight."Mrs Chen has been with me since I was born," he said. "She was there when I took my first steps. She was there when I said my first words. She was there when my father..." He stopped. Took a breath. "She is practically my second mother.""Dorian.""She bandaged my cuts. She stayed up

Chapter Eighteen: The Choice

DorianI could not stop thinking about it.The files. The photographs. The way Ivy had looked at me when she pointed out the pattern. The way her voice had been so sure, so certain, so convinced that Mrs Chen was a killer.I poured myself another drink and stared at the wall.The whiskey burned going down. It was the only thing I had felt in hours. The only thing that reminded me I was still alive.Marcus found me at two in the morning. He did not knock. Just walked in and sat down across from me."You look terrible," he said."I feel terrible.""Because of the girl?""Because of everything."Marcus leaned back in his chair. He did not say anything. He was good at that. Waiting. Letting me fill the silence with my own words.I did."She thinks Mrs Chen killed them. All twelve. She found a pattern in the files. The day they died. The day Mrs Chen had off. She thinks it is evidence."Marcus raised an eyebrow. "And what do you think?""I do not know what to think.""You know Mrs Chen. Yo

Chapter Nineteen: Truth Exposed

IvyMrs Chen did not move from the bed.She just sat there with her hands folded in her lap and her silver hair pinned up neatly and her eyes that were not kind or gentle or anything I had seen before."Close the door, child," she said.I did not want to close the door. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to find Dorian and tell him that the woman he trusted was sitting on my bed like she owned the room.But my feet would not move. My hands would not move. My mouth would not open.Mrs Chen sighed. It was a soft sound. Almost sad."I said close the door."I reached behind me and pushed the door closed. The click echoed through the room."Good." Mrs Chen patted the bed beside her. "Sit."I did not sit.Mrs Chen's eyes hardened. Just a little. Just enough."I have been nothing but kind to you since you arrived," she said. Her voice was calm. Hurt. Like a mother scolding a child who had been misbehaving. "I have made you meals. I have cleaned your room. I have brought you tea ev

Chapter Twenty: The Devil I Know

DorianI went back to business.That was what I told myself. That was what I told Marcus. That was what I told everyone who looked at me with questions in their eyes.The shipments. The contracts. The deals. The endless dance of men who wanted what I had and would do anything to take it. I buried myself in it. Let the numbers and the names and the deadlines fill my head so I would not have to think about her.It did not work.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face. The way her tears had rolled down her cheeks. The way her voice had cracked when she said my name. The way she had stood in my doorway, small and broken and begging me to listen.I had told her to leave.I had told her I did not want her.I had watched her walk away and done nothing to stop her.Marcus walked into my office at noon. He had a tablet in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other."The Irish are asking about the alliance," he said. "They want to know when you are introducing the bride.""Soon.""You have b

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